The Free University of Berlin political scientist --
author of a 140-page report commissioned by the defence --
said Mr Irving had had "all sorts of interactions" with
German neo-Nazis in the early 1990s.

Using video clips of footage of Mr Irving speaking in
German at far-right events, Professor Funke identified an
assortment of leading extremists and neo-Nazis who had also
been present.

In one dramatic sequence, stomping skinheads in
bovver-boots were shown marching to a rally in Halle
in 1991, where Mr Irving was one of the speakers. When
he spoke, they were heard shouting: Sieg Heil.

Cross-examining the professor, Mr Irving suggested the
skinheads might have been bribed to shout Nazi slogans by
television crews.

"'Did you see me put up my hand to tell them to stop?" Mr
Irving queried.

He went on to suggest that be had been "shocked" by some
of his audience. "Did you get the impression that I was
overjoyed?" he asked. "Was I happy?'"

"You knew the character of the event, ' Professor Funke
retorted.

In his report, the German academic argued that Mr Irving
"had strong and consistent connections with many...
[German] neo-Nazi organisations between
1990-1993."

Some groups were subsequently banned for inciting racial
hatred, he told the court.

'"How could I have anticipated... that they would be
banned?" Mr Irving asked him.

"As an intelligent man who knows German, you could have
known," the professor replied.

Dispute
on denial claim

BY LEE LEVITT

PROFESSOR Hajo Funke told the court on
Wednesday that David Irving had "clearly" denied the
Holocaust at a Berlin press conference.

The professor alleged that Mr Irving had stated: "It is a
defamation of the German people if one talks of
extermination camps or death camps."

But Mr Irving countered that he had been misquoted at the
1989 conference, which followed the launch of the Leuchter
report, claiming scientific proof that gas chambers did not
exist at Auschwitz.
He said he was merely reiterating his contention that
Auschwitz had not been "purpose-designed as a factory of
death."

Mr Irving also denied joining in a toast to Adolf Hitler
at a 1990 Munich dinner arranged by Bela Althans,
organiser of the since-closed Office for People's
Enlightenment and Publicity.

I had no glass as I don't drink. If one has no glass and
one doesn't drink, how can one toast?" Mr Irving is suing
over claims that he is a Holocaust-denier who has twisted
history. The case continues.

Expert outlines
extermination policy

BY BERNARD JOSEPHS

THE GRIM details of how Nazi doctors
oversaw efforts to work concentration camp inmates to death
were relayed by a German historian at last Thursday's
hearing.

Dr Peter Longerich said the policy of
"extermination through work" was illustrated by the
so-called "death audits" maintained by the camp authorities.
The aim, he told the court, was to ensure that replacements
were found for those worked to death.

The duty of Nazi doctors was "not to keep the inmates
alive but to maintain their effectiveness as a workforce as
high as possible." Those who became too weak were sent to
death camps, and the labour force was renewed by fresh
arrivals.

Dr Longerich was responding to a claim by David Irving
that SS chief Heinrich Himmler had been upset about
the death rate at work camps, including Auschwitz. At one
point, 70,000 out of 156,000 arrivals at concentration camps
had died and Himmler, in a letter to camp doctors, said this
was "completely unacceptable," Mr Irving said.

"It wasn't the role of the doctors to look after the
health and welfare of the inmates," Dr Longerich
observed.

"Was there not a hospital in Auschwitz?" Mr Irving
asked.

"It was a place for sick persons, but its main role was
to select them for the gas chambers," Dr Longerich
replied.

Mr Irving read from a German report suggesting that the
death rate among slave labourers in concentration camps fell
from a peak of 10 per cent in December 1942 to eight per
cent the following month. According to the report, this had
been due to an increase in rations and measures to improve
hygiene.

The witness countered that the life expectancy in such
places was, at most, "a couple of months... People were put
to death after their ability to work had been used for a
certain period."

Clash
over 'anti-Semitism'

BY BERNARD JOSEPHS

IN A SHARP exchange on Monday, defence QC
Richard Rampton accused David Irving of being part of
a "Hitler-worshipping, Holocaust-denying scene."

Addressing the judge, Mr Justice Gray, Mr Rampton
asserted that material placed before the court -- which
"came from Mr Irving's pen and from his lips" -- was
virulently anti-Semitic.

"He has prostituted his talent, which is considerable, in
the interests of the restoration of a neo-Nazi and
anti-Semitic ideology," counsel alleged.

Mr Irving argued that his association with non-violent
extremists was "not in itself necessarily reprehensible." At
this juncture, the judge intervened to say he was "not sure
about that," speaking of the need not to be "careless in
one's choice of friends."

The plaintiff asked for "limitations" to be placed on the
forthcoming cross-examination over his political background.
"There is no guilt by association in this country," Mr
Irving argued. I don't want this to get out of hand... It
could become a shooting gallery."